Fair Isle Design

Shetland Wool Week 2016

2016 was my first ever year at Wool Week so the build up was exciting and scary, but it turned out to be a great week and a definite highlight of 2016.

To prepare for Wool Week I collaborated with my granny (aka Wilma Malcolmson, aka Shetland Designer) to create a pattern to go in the Annual. If you were at Wool Week or bought an annual you may have noticed our hat:

During Wool Week I shadowed Donna Smith, helping as best I could with her classes. It was great fun to learn from and work with Donna, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to spend my week with. To prepare for the week I met with her for a cup of tea and to discuss her plans for each class. Some of the techniques were brand new for me, and some I hadn’t done since primary school but after discussing her plans I was very excited to get underway.

Here are some of my personal highlights!

To start off Wool Week I had arranged to take part in a class doing mood boards with Joanna Huner and Donna Smith. This was something i’d been interested in, but hadn’t actually tried myself. It was great fun spending the day with these lovely ladies and getting a chance to put together some new colours. We were encouraged to use a colour we wouldnt normally use so i chose the most horrifyingly bright yellow i could.. then shortly after i found a picture I liked which happened to include the luminescent yellow and I was underway. I found some more yarns to match and built my board including a swatch. Im still not keen on the yellow but I was pleased with the outcome of my first wool week class:

Sunday was a busy day, I helped Donna with two classes then we went directly to the opening ceremony to help out. I was so tired by the time I got home but it had been such great fun. The highlight of Sunday had to be one of my own ‘Sea Pinks’ all overs in the fashion show! (middle)

The Shades of Shetland class with Donna was a real highlight through out the week. It was great fun to be able to give advice on the colour work (I hope it was all helpful advice), I found it really interesting to see everyone produce something completely different when given the same instructions. Pictured are the swatches from Mondays Class:

Spending a Day in East House, Burra with Donna, Joanna, and all the people attending the second mood board class was great fun. This time I was helping with the class and it was great to watch people do and try new things like I had been doing just a few days before. I seem to be looking back at the pictures I took from this class quite a lot, theres a lot of colours to be seen and I seem to get new ideas each time I look back!

Donnas lace collection was so inspiring, I had to include this!

The rest of the week were a mixture of Donnas classes, spending time in the hub and of course speaking to lots of new people! We drank so much tea to keep us going but the adrenaline seemed to do most of the work. Finally a big thank you to the Wool Week organisers (Kirsty and Misa pictured left), to Donna and Joanna for allowing me to help at their classes and to everyone I met who made it so interesting and fun. The support I have gained since then has been incredible, what an unforgettable week and I’m already looking forward to next year!